1. Field of the Disclosure
The invention relates to a machining device with at least one machining head which is designed to provide at least one high-energy machining beam, in particular an electron beam or a laser beam.
2. Description of the Related Art
A machining device known from the market makes a relative motion possible between one or more workpieces to be machined and the machining head, in order to enable an eroding and/or joining machining of material. The machining head is equipped with an integrated or separately constructed source of the high-energy machining beam, for example a laser beam or an electron beam. Typical fields of application for a machining device of such a type are the eroding of material of a workpiece by means of a laser beam, or the welding of plastic parts or metal parts by means of an electron beam or a laser beam. Depending on the field of application, stringent quality demands are made of machining processes of such a type, which also require, inter alia, an exact guidance of the high-energy machining beam in relation to the workpiece, as well as a monitoring of the result of machining on the workpiece. For this purpose, a known machining device can be provided with one or more sensor devices which, using optical measuring methods (for example, light-slit methods) and/or electrical measuring methods (for example, eddy-current methods) and/or acoustic measuring methods (for example, ultrasonic methods), enable an examination of the result of machining that is necessary for quality control.
Since the sensors for the application of the known measuring methods are greatly influenced by the high-energy machining beam and/or require a mechanical contact with the surface being machined, a minimal spacing has to be maintained between the machining location of the machining beam and the measuring point at which the respective measuring method is applied. Consequently a process control for the machining beam can only take place with a time delay. The time delay results from the speed of machining and the geometrical spacing between machining location and measuring location.